IN LATER BOYHOOD. Borrowed from Mr Murdoch : The Life of Hannibal. Borrowed at a later period from Kilpatrick, the blacksmith: The Life of Sir William Wallace. [Hamilton of Gilbertfield's reduction of the poem of Henry the Minstrel.] Given by Mr Murdoch as presents: A Compendium of English Grammar. The School for Love, a comedy translated from the French. Borrowed by William Burness for his children : Salmon's Geographical Grammar. Derham's Physico-Theology. Ray's Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation. Given by a maternal uncle: The Ready Reckoner. A Collection of Letters. Borrowed from Mrs Paterson of Ayr: The Spectator. Pope's Translation of Homer. Borrowed from Mr Hamilton of Bourtreehill's gardener: A volume of English history (period of James I. and Charles I.) Otherwise borrowed : Ferdinand Count Fathom. Two volumes of Peregrine Pickle. Otherwise obtained, and mostly the property of William Burness: Bayle's Lectures. [There appears to be no such book as The Spectator. Taylor on the Doctrine of Original Sin. Hervey's Meditations. Justice's British Gardener's Directory. Tull and Dickson on Agriculture. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. The Pantheon. The Works of Allan Ramsay. A Select Collection of English Songs [The Lark, 2 vols.] The Works of Pope. Several Plays of Shakspeare. No. 4 (p. 39).-'MY NANNIE, O.' It can be, in general, a matter of very little importance to the public, indeed little more than a gratification of curiosity, to ascertain upon which of the rustic maidens within his observation Burns composed any of his songs. Sometimes, however, a peculiarity of Burns's temper and tastes, or some circumstance affecting the texture of his life, may be concerned, and then the subject is not without its value. In Wood's Songs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 3 vols., 1849) there is a note on this subject, in which a statement originating in Cunningham's edition respecting the song of Wandering Willie is contradicted, and the writer then adverts in the following terms to My Nannie, O:-'A hunt was made for a heroine by an annotator, when it was discovered that a servant-girl, named Agnes Fleming, had lived near Lochlea at the time that William Burness occupied that farm. This evidence was thought quite sufficient. No more was sought. The note was written the affair was settled,' &c. The writer goes on to say: 'Who, until some fifty years after the poet's death, ever heard of his making love to Agnes Fleming either in prose or verse? Then was Nannie disintombed, that she might, like an Egyptian mummy, be embalmed in the poet's verse, merely because she had the good-luck to be kirsened Nannie or Agnes.' I know nothing of the hunt here spoken of; but certainly the writer is mistaken in thinking that the assignment of this honour to Agnes Fleming was unheard of till fifty years after the poet's death. Mr George Thomson, in 1819, used some diligence in ascertaining from Mr Gilbert Burns and Mrs Robert Burns the names of such persons as they believed to have been contemplated by the poet in writing his songs. In a letter of Gilbert (Grant's Braes, 3d June 1819) to Mr Thomson, now before me, I find the following:- My Nannie, O, was a farmer's daughter in Torbolton parish, the name Fleming.' Mr Thomson published this statement, which was subsequently adopted by Cunningham and other editors. The writer of the note in Wood's Songs goes on to argue, that Burns wrote My Nannie, O, in honour of Peggy Thomson, the Kirkoswald fillette, but without advancing any stronger proof than the fact, that the poet did love Peggy, which he avers was never the case of Agnes. I find that Mrs Begg also is of opinion, that Peggy Thomson was the theme of My Nannie, O. It may be so; but the writer in Wood assumes too much in saying, that there is no evidence for Agnes Fleming having ever been loved by the poet. Gilbert, after mentioning her name, goes on to say, 'to whom the poet paid some of that roving attention which he was continually devoting to some one.' The averment of the brother and bosom-friend of Burns must be next, in a case of this kind, to his own. It is admitted on all hands, that Agnes Fleming was not a beauty. She in this respect illustrates the statement of Gilbert with regard to the female subjects of his brother's verses, that there was often a great disparity between his fair captivator and her attributes.' One cannot but experience a twinge in contrasting the exquisite picture of loveliness conveyed in the song with the reality; yet, under the aspect which the question has taken, I am bound to add the following from Gilbert's letter, by way of supporting what seems to have the superior evidence in its favour:- Her charms were indeed mediocre; but what she had were sexual, which was indeed the characteristic of the greater part of the poet's mistresses. He was no Platonic lover, whatever he might pretend or suppose of himself.' Agnes Fleming was at one time a servant in the house of Mr Gavin Hamilton, by whose family she is remembered as a plainlooking woman, but of good figure and carriage. The poor woman herself never made any pretensions regarding this specimen of divine poesy, beyond saying that the bard once told her he had written a song about her. No. 5 (p. 92).-TORBOLTON MASON LODGES. There is some obscurity about Burns's masonic affiliation; but the following appears to be as nearly as possible the true series of circumstances : The St James's Torbolton Lodge, No. 178, was constituted by a charter from Kilwinning in 1771. A number of members left the St James's in 1773, and formed themselves, with some new entrants, into the St David's Lodge. A union of the two took place on the 25th June 1781, and it was agreed that the one lodge then constituted should bear the name of St David's; probably a compliment or concession designed to appease the schismatic body. Burns was admitted an apprentice in this sole Torbolton Lodge, styled St David's, on the 4th July, and passed and raised on the 1st of October 1781, and these transactions are recorded in the books peculiar to the distinct St David's Lodge. A new disruption took place in June 1782, and the separating body then re-constituted the St James's Lodge. Burns was of this party, and thenceforward his name is found only in the books of the distinct St James's Lodge. It would therefore appear, that though entered in what was nominally the St David's Lodge, he does not properly belong to the detached lodge now bearing that name, but to the lodge distinctly called the St James's, which he has immortalised in verse. Somewhat unexpectedly, indeed, his admission into the Dumfries St Andrew's Lodge, on the 27th December 1788, is signified in the book of that body in the following terms:- The Brethren having selebrated the aniversary of St John in the usual manner, and Brother Robt. Burns in Ailliesland, of St David's Strabolton Lodge No. 178, being present, the Lodge unanimously assumed him a Member of the Lodge, being a Master masson, and he subscribed the regulations as a member. (Signed) SIM. MACKENZIE,' It might have been expected that Burns would describe himself as belonging to the St James's Lodge. Possibly, however, it was necessary to mention the name of the lodge in which he was entered or it might be a mistake of the Dumfries secretary, putting down St David's for St James's-a circumstance the more probable, as No. 178 is the number of the St James's Lodge, while that of the St David's is 174. No. 6 (p. 118).—THE ROCKING-SONG. It has lately been discovered that Lapraik could not justly pretend to be the author of the song When I upon thy bosom lean. In the Weekly Magazine, October 14, 1773, is a piece, entitled Lines Addressed by a Husband to his Wife after being Six Years Married, and sharing a great variety of Fortune together, and running as follows: EDIN. Oct. 11. 'When on thy bosom I recline, To call thee mine for life; I glory in the sacred ties, Which modern wits and fools despise, One mutual flame inspires our bliss; The tender look, the melting kiss, Even years have not destroyed; Some sweet sensation ever new Springs up and proves the maxim true, Have I a wish-'tis all for thee; Hast thou a wish-'tis all for me; So soft our moments move, If care arise (and cares will come) And is there aught disturbs my fair, I bid her sigh out all her care, And lose it in my breast. Have I a joy-'tis all her own, Or hers and mine are all but one, That like the ivy round the tree, "Tis death to be disjoined. A HAPPY HUSBAND.' There cannot be a doubt that this rustic bard had fallen upon these verses, and, ignorant of the principles of literary morality, deemed himself at liberty to make a song, assumedly his own, out of them, and to publish this without any acknowledgment of the source of his ideas. His song, as here printed, appeared in a volume of 'Poems,' which he published at Kilmarnock in 1788. Burns, who probably never knew or suspected the plagiarism, afterwards dressed up the song as follows for Johnson's Museum : 'When I upon thy bosom lean, And fondly clasp thee a' my ain, I glory in the sacred ties That made us ane wha ance were twain: A mutual flame inspires us baith, The tender look, the melting kiss; Even years can not destroy our love, Ha'e I a wish, 'tis a' for thee; I ken thy wish is me to please: And aye when weary cares arise, Thy bosom still shall be my hame. I'll lay me there and tak my rest, And beg her not to drap a tear: Ha'e I a joy, 'tis a' her ain, United still her heart and mine; They 're like the woodbine round the tree, That's twined till death shall them disjoin.' No. 7 (p. 122).—TAYLOR ON ORIGINAL SIN. The title of this work is, The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin Proposed to Free and Candid Examination: By John Taylor. The first edition was published in 1740. The third, dated 1750, is an 8vo volume of nearly 500 pages. In the first part, the author starts with the admission, that 'all truth necessary to salvation is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.' He immediately adds: As for human wisdom and knowledge, I ought to value it, in religious matters, just so much, and so far only, as it serves to unfold the mind and meaning of God in the Scriptures; in the interpretation of which we ought not to admit anything contradictory to the common sense and understanding of mankind." He then proceeds to say, that there are no more than five places |